Ahijah Prophesies Against Jeroboam
14 At that time, Jeroboam’s son Abijah became sick. 2 Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please get up and disguise yourself, so that you will not be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. There you will find Ahijah the prophet, who told me that I would be king over this people. 3 Take ten loaves, cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to our child.” 4 Jeroboam’s wife did so and arose and went to Shiloh, to the house of Ahijah.
But Ahijah could not see, for in his old age he had gone blind. 5 The Lord said to Ahijah, “The wife of Jeroboam has come to ask you about her son, for he is sick. You shall say thus and thus to her, for when she comes, she will be disguised as another woman.”
6 And so when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you disguise yourself as another? I have been sent to you with bad news. 7 Go tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I raised you up from among the people and made you prince over My people Israel, 8 and took the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it you. Yet you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments and who followed Me with all his heart to do only that which was right in My eyes, 9 but you have sinned more than all who were before you, for you have gone and made other gods and molded images and provoked Me to anger and have cast Me behind your back.
10 “ ‘Therefore I will bring disaster upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam all males, both slave and free in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man takes away refuse until it is all gone. 11 Descendants of Jeroboam who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by the birds of the air, for the Lord has spoken it.’
12 “Arise therefore and go to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child will die. 13 All Israel will mourn for him and bury him, for he alone from the house of Jeroboam will come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel.
14 “Moreover the Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the house of Jeroboam this day and from now on. 15 For the Lord will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and He will uproot Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking the Lord to anger. 16 He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam who sinned and who led Israel to sin.”
17 Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed and came to Tirzah. As she arrived at the threshold of the door, the child died, 18 and they buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by the hand of His servant Ahijah the prophet.
19 The rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he waged war and how he reigned, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 20 Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years, and then he slept with his fathers, and Nadab, his son, reigned in his stead.
Rehoboam, King of Judah(A)
21 Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put His name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.
22 Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the people provoked Him to jealousy with the sins they committed, even worse than their fathers had done. 23 For they also built high places and images and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 24 There were also male cult prostitutes in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations that the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.
25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. 26 He took away all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, even all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. 27 King Rehoboam replaced them with bronze shields and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard who guarded the king’s house. 28 And whenever the king entered the house of the Lord, the guards carried them and brought them back into the guard chamber.
29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 30 There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31 Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. And Abijah his son reigned in his stead.